


Right from the start you were a thief

by redroslin



Series: Written in the scars [3]
Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: (Not actually a meet cute), Competence Kink, Gen, Mid-Canon, Pre-OT4, Sam watches Dee shoot that's the fic, Timestamp, meet cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-11
Updated: 2019-03-11
Packaged: 2019-11-15 07:04:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18068834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redroslin/pseuds/redroslin
Summary: She shone like a star, like an angel in the scriptures, and Sam didn't know what it meant.





	Right from the start you were a thief

**Author's Note:**

> This is set very early in the gap at the end of season 2 ("1 year later" in 2.20 Lay Down Your Burdens pt 2) in the days immediately following Kara's rescue of Sam and the other guerrillas from Caprica--so, a day or two after Kara pulls her "my personal property" bit at Sam and Lee.
> 
> Title is from Pink's Just Give Me A Reason.
> 
> (I *promise* chapter 17 of [WITS](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11162532/chapters/24913713) is coming. I'm sorry it's been so long! Life has been... a lot. But I'm still here. Have a wee Dee/Sam prequel for now and I hope you'll forgive me the long delay in posting.)

Firearms exams probably weren't open to spectators of the civilian persuasion. But no one had asked Sam and Jean to leave and, after all, Sergeant Fischer had ended his recruitment pitch with the casual injunction to "Feel free to look around, just stay out of the way," so here they were. Looking around and staying out of the way.

They'd started out wandering Galactica as a group, gradually splitting off into pairs and trios to check out different parts of the ship or bother friends at their stations. By lunch on the second day they were down to half a dozen Caprican refugees traveling the corridors at random. Then Booker wanted to make another detour to the flight deck, and Charlie left to catch up on sleep, and everyone else had decided to go their separate ways, too. Somehow, without paying attention to where they were going, Sam and Jean had found themselves on the shooting range in the middle of weapons recertification quals.

They'd glanced at each other and Sam had shrugged-- _why not?_ \--and that's how they wound up hovering at the back of the shooting gallery while a dozen or so of Galactica's crew took turns firing on a Cylon-shaped target that might once have been considered vintage.

To Sam's eye, the lineup mostly had the look of non-combat-duty staff--they seemed tired, quiet, with none of the simmering twitchiness of the pilots he'd met. Seasoned officers, just not the ones taking fire on a daily basis.

At the far end of the gallery, an official with a clipboard marked down results as the crew took turns shooting. Most of them were fair enough shots but some were really nothing to write home about, Sam thought skeptically as he watched a soldier hit the target in eight different places that didn't seem entirely deliberate. He wouldn't fail her, if he was the one doing the grading, but--well, Sam could shoot better than that, and he wasn't military trained.

When she had emptied her clip, the officer nodded and gestured the next soldier forward curtly. "Lieutenant Gaeta."

The fourth crewman had more swagger and a slightly steadier arm, but still nothing special.

By the next, Sam nudged Jean and tilted his head toward the door-- _Ready to get out of here?_ \--but Jean only shrugged and settled into her lean against the wall, so Sam stayed put. Not like he had anywhere he needed to be.

This one wasn't great, either, but so far none of the soldiers--officers?--trainees?--were failing their weapons qualifications, so that was something, he supposed. Score one for the Colonial Fleet.

The next shooter seemed just as dull as the rest, dressed in the blue Colonial jumpsuit and wearing the same expression of mild anxiety as the two who'd come before her--definitely not someone who handled a weapon often. She was slight, with delicate features and vivid green eyes; Sam didn't think he'd ever seen anyone look so out of place in uniform.

Then she started shooting.

It was clear she didn't feel at home with a gun in her hand, but that didn't hinder her aim. She carried herself with unflinching focus and fired on the target with precision, rapid shots clustered dead center in the target's chest.

Sam couldn't tear his eyes away. The look of concentration on her face. The confidence in her bearing. She was beautiful... and something more. She shone like a star, like an angel in the scriptures. Sam knew in a way he couldn't have explained that there was more to this woman than the eye could see--more that he needed to find out, someday.

She exhausted her clip and lowered her weapon. Sam blinked and she was just a person again, an officer in drab Colonial uniform, a little shorter and perhaps a little prettier than your average recruit. But that was all.

She turned to exchange a conspiratorial smile with the man who'd shot a few minutes before her, the one with the unearned swagger, and the jerk had the nerve to nod approvingly. Sam found himself irrationally annoyed on her behalf--how dare that semi-incompetent to be reassuring this tiny frakking goddess when he could barely shoot? Who did he think he was?

"Well at least one of them can handle a weapon," Jean muttered snidely as the woman turned in her sidearm and the final soldier in line took up his gun.

Sam nodded, still watching the woman who'd just tested. "Did you catch her name?"

"Lieutenant--something with a 'D'. Dalla. Dahlia." Jean shrugged.

"...Was it Dualla?"

"I dunno. Maybe?"

"Huh." Not what he'd been expecting after Kara's snide remarks about her old friend's new girlfriend. "I think she's the one dating the Admiral's son."

"He as much of a stick in the mud as everyone says?"

"Definitely."

Jean nodded. "Lunch?"

"Sure."

Sam hazarded a glance back as they ducked out through the hatch. Dualla never looked away from watching the final crewman litter the target with bullets.

 

* * *

 

Two years later, with Kara dead and nothing but ghosts between his ears, Sam didn't have the energy to ask what Dualla was doing in memorial hallway--why she was standing in front of Kara's photo, why she existed when Kara was gone. ( _Kara couldn't be gone. His Kara was too mean to die._ )

"You look like you could use a drink," Dualla said.

"I really could," he agreed unthinking. "You buying?"

 

NOT THE BEGINNING


End file.
